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From a primarily urban perspective, the author illustrates that the fields of transportation, environment (with an emphasis on climate change) and security (for both natural hazards and terrorism) and their interconnections remain robust areas for policy and planning. Synthesizing existing data, new analyses, and a rich set of case studies, the book uses transportation networks as a framework to explore transportation in conjunction with environment, security, and interdependencies with other infrastructure sectors. The US rail transit system, ecological corridors, cyber security, planning mechanisms and the effectiveness of technologies are among the topics explored in detail. Case studies of severe and potential impacts of natural hazards, accidents, and security breaches on transportation are presented. These cases support the analyses of the forces on transportation, land use and patterns of population change that connect, disconnect and reconnect people from their environment and security

The infrastructure of the future provides the opportunity for new innovations to meet the constantly changing and diversified needs of cities. Some of the relatively more recent needs are using renewable resources, protecting infrastructure and its users against natural hazards, reducing environmental threats including global warming, enhancing safety and security, and providing an overall high-performing service for infrastructure users. Given that resources to support these additional financial needs and services are limited, this article will examine ways in which cities can address the demands of these new emerging areas synergistically as well as through more traditional investments. In particular, traditional investment areas for upgrading urban infrastructure to meet "state-of-good-repair" benchmarks are presented for energy, transportation, and water as a foundation for conceptualizing how these new demands might alter, yet dovetail with, traditional investment.

Examines debate over methods used to evaluate the toxic qualities of these chemicals.

Social equity has become an important concern of the environmental movement over the past decade. The equity issue is analyzed here for practically all of the inactive hazardous waste disposal sites on the National Priorities List (NPL) regulated under the Comprehensive Response Compensation and Liability Act and its 1986 Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (CERCLA/ SARA). Two dimensions of equity are emphasized, namely, site location relative to the location of minority populations and the distribution of cleanup plans or Records of Decision (ROD) across communities with NPL sites that have different socioeconomic characteristics. With respect to site location, the percentage of Blacks and Hispanics aggregated at the Census Place or MCD level in communities with NPL sites was greater than is typical nationwide (largely attributable to the concentration of minority populations in a few large urban areas with NPL sites). In contrast, the percentage of the population below the poverty line in communities with NPL sites largely matched that of the nation as a whole. With respect to site cleanup, communities with relatively higher percentages of racial minority populations have fewer cleanup plans (Records of Decision signed) than other communities with NPL sites. Whether a ROD exists is influenced by when the site was designated for the NPL: sites designated earlier (prior to the SARA amendments of 1986) are more likely to have RODs, and also less likely to have high proportions of racial minority populations than sites designated later. This implies that initially the designation process may have resulted in NPL sites being located disproportionately in minority areas, but this pattern seems to be reversing itself in more recently designated sites. As with any statistical analysis, these findings are findings of association and not causality. Thus, racial and ethnic disproportionalities with respect to inactive hazardous waste site location seem to be concentrated in a relatively few areas. Disproportionalities with respect to cleanup do exist, but appear to be more a function of the nature of the process of designation of NPL sites in the early 1980s rather than a result of actions connected with cleanup plans per se. Further investigations are needed at alternative geographic scales to discern the sensitivity of patterns of inequity to distance from the sites.

Differences in statutory mandates, traditions, and attitudes toward risk cause agencies to develop different standards for the same substances. As a response to this fragmentation and uncertainty, common to environment decisions, new organizations emerge to try to coordinate the agencies but usually are created to perform a specific task rather than to coordinate agencies. For these new organizational forms to succeed, they must be in place before the crisis occurs and they must be able to facilitate, not impede, normal adaptive mechanisms of organizations.

Water pollution from agricultural pesticides continues to be a public concern. Given that the use of such pesticides on the farm is largely governed by voluntary behavior, it is important to understand what drives farmer behavior. Health belief models in public health and social psychology argue that persons who have adverse health experiences are likely to undertake preventive behavior. An analogous hypothesis set was tested here: farmers who believe they have had adverse health experiences from pesticides are likely to have heightened concerns about pesticides and are more likely to take greater precautions in dealing with pesticides. This work is based on an original survey of a population of 2700 corn and soybean growers in Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania using the U.S. Department of Agriculture data base. It was designed as a mail survey with telephone follow‐up, and resulted in a 60 percent response rate. Farm operators report experiencing adverse health problems they believe are associated with pesticides that is equivalent to an incidence rate that is higher than the reported incidence of occupational pesticide poisonings, but similar to the reported incidence of all pesticide poisonings. Farmers who report experiencing such problems have more heightened concerns about water pollution from fertilizers and pesticides, and illness and injury from mixing, loading, and applying pesticides than farmers who have not experienced such problems. Farmers who report experiencing such problems also are more likely to report using alternative pest management practices than farmers who do not report having such problems. This implies that farmers who have had such experiences do care about the effects of application and do engage in alternative means of pest management, which at least involve the reduction in pesticide use.